Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 32

_Denham_ "On Mr. Abraham Cowley," _Poems_, 1671, p. 90:

Old Mother Wit and Nature gave _Shakespear_ and _Fletcher_ all they have.

_Milton._ _L'Allegro_, 134.

_Dryden._ _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_: see p. 160.

_some one else._ Edward Young, the author of _Night Thoughts_, in his _Conjectures on Original Composition_, 1759, p. 31.

168. _Hales of Eton._ See p. 8.

_Fuller_,-_Worthies of England_, 1662, "Warwicks.h.i.+re," p. 126: "Indeed his Learning was very little, so that as _Cornish diamonds_ are not polished by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the Earth, so _nature_ it self was all the _art_ which was used upon him." The concluding phrase of Farmer's quotation is taken from an earlier portion of Fuller's description: "William Shakespeare ... in whom three eminent Poets may seem in some sort to be compounded, 1. _Martial_ ... 2.

_Ovid_ ... 3. _Plautus_, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar, as our _Shakespeare_ (if alive) would confess himself."

_untutored lines._ Dedication of the _Rape of Lucrece_.

_Mr. Glldon._ "Hence perhaps the _ill-starr'd rage_ between this critick and his elder brother, John Dennis, so pathetically lamented in the _Dunciad_. Whilst the former was persuaded that 'the man who doubts of the learning of Shakespeare hath none of his own,' the latter, above regarding the attack in his _private_ capacity, declares with great patriotick vehemence that 'he who allows Shakespeare had learning, and a familiar acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of Great Britain.' Dennis was expelled his college for attempting to stab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this anecdote" (Farmer). Farmer supplied the details in a letter to Isaac Reed dated Jan. 28, 1794: see the _European Magazine_, June, 1794, pp. 412-3.

_Sewell_, in the preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespear, 1725.

_Pope._ See p. 52.

_Theobald._ See p. 75.

_Warburton_, in his notes to Shakespeare, _pa.s.sim_.

169. _Upton_, in his _Critical Observations_, 1748, pp. 3 and 5.

"_Hath hard words_," etc. _Hudibras_, 1. i. 85-6.

_trochaic dimeter_, etc. See Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 366, etc.

"_it was a learned age_," etc. _Id._, p. 5. Cf. Hurd's _Marks of Imitation_, 1757, p. 24.

_Grey_, in his _Notes on Shakespeare_, 1754, vol. i., p. vii.

_Dodd_, William (1729-1777), the forger, editor of the _Beauties of Shakespeare_, 1752.

_Whalley._ Farmer is here unfair to Whalley. The _Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare_ shows plainly that Whalley preferred Shakespeare to Jonson. Further, his _Enquiry_ was earlier than his edition of Jonson.

In it Whalley expresses the hope "that some Gentleman of Learning would oblige the Public with a correct Edition" (p. 23).

170. _Addison ... Chevy Chase._ See the _Spectator_, Nos. 70 and 74 (May, 1711).

_Wagstaffe_, William (1685-1725), ridiculed Addison's papers on _Chevy Chase_ in _A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb_, 1711.

_Marks of Imitation._ Hurd's _Letter to Mr. Mason, on the Marks of Imitation_ was printed in 1757. It was added to his edition of Horace's Epistles to the Pisos and Augustus.

_as Mat. Prior says_,-_Alma_, i. 241: "And save much Christian ink's effusion."

_Read Libya._ Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 255.

171. _Heath._ "It is extraordinary that this Gentleman should attempt so voluminous a work as the _Revisal of Shakespeare's Text_, when, he tells us in his Preface, 'he was not so fortunate as to be furnished with either of the Folio editions, much less any of the ancient Quartos': and even 'Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Mr. Warburton's representation' " (Farmer).

171. _Thomas North._ "I find the character of this work pretty early delineated:

"'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made, That Latin French, that French to English straid: Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference, Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France." (Farmer).

"_What a reply is this?_" Upton, _Critical Observations_, p. 249.

"_Our author certainly wrote_," etc. Theobald, ed. 1733, vi., p. 178.

172. _Epitaph on Timon._ "See Theobald's Preface to _K. Richard 2d._ 8vo.

1720" (Farmer).

_I cannot however omit_, etc. The following pa.s.sage, down to "from Homer himself" (foot of p. 175) was added in the second edition.

"_The speeches copy'd from Plutarch_," etc. See Pope's Preface, p. 53.

_Should we be silent._ _Coriola.n.u.s_, v. 3. 94, etc.

174. _The Sun's a thief._ _Timon of Athens_, iv. 3. 439, etc.

_Dodd._ See the _Beauties of Shakespeare_, 1752, iii. 285, n. The remark was omitted in the edition of 1780.

_"__our Author,__"__ says some one._ This quotation is from the criticism of Farmer's _Essay_ in the _Critical Review_ of January, 1767 (vol.

xxiii., p. 50; cf. vol. xxi., p. 21).

_Mynheer De Pauw._ See _Anacreontis Odae et Fragmenta, Graece et Latine ... c.u.m notis Joannis Cornelii de Pauw_, Utrecht, 1732.

_two Latin translations._ "By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Paris, 1554, 4to, ten years before the birth of Shakespeare. The former version hath been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other translators appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the Ode in question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were soon to be met with in almost every modern language" (Farmer).

_Puttenham._ _Arte of English Poesie_, iii., ch. xxii. (Arber, p. 259; _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, ed. Gregory Smith, ii., p. 171). The "some one of a reasonable good facilitie in translation" is John Southern, whose _Musyque of the Beautie of his Mistresse Diana_, containing translations from Ronsard, appeared in 1584.

175. _Mrs. Lennox_, Charlotte Ramsay or Lennox (1720-1804), author of _Shakespear Ill.u.s.trated: or the Novels and Histories on which the Plays of Shakespear are founded, collected and translated from the original Authors, with critical Remarks_, 3 vols., 1753, 54. She is better known by her _Female Quixote_, 1752.

_the old story._ "It was originally _drawn into Englishe_ by Caxton under the name of the _Recuyel of the Historyes of Troye_, etc.... Wynken de Worde printed an edit. Fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent ones" (Farmer).

_sweet oblivious antidote._ Upton, p. 42, n.

??pe????. _Odyssey_, iv. 221.

_Chapman's_ seven books of the _Iliad_ appeared in 1598. The translation of the _Iliad_ was completed in 1611 and that of the _Odyssey_ in 1614.

_Barclay._ "Who list thistory of Patroclus to reade, etc. _s.h.i.+p of Fooles_, 1570, p. 21" (Farmer).